sun-dials. There are no less than three of these in the North Riding of
Yorkshire; viz., at Old Byland, and at Edstow near Pickering, and at
Kirkdale.[29] The last is fullest and most perfect, and is, moreover,
dated. It bears: "+ Orm Gamalson bought the minster of S. Gregory when
it was all to broken and to fallen, and he it let make anew from ground
for Christ and S. Gregory in the days of Edward the King and Tosti the
Earl. + and Hawarth wrought me and Brand presbiter. + This is day's
sun-marker, hour by hour."

The poetical inscription in Runes, on the Ruthwell Cross, is too large a
subject for this place.[30]


JEWELLERY.

The Anglo-Saxons retained an old tradition of decorative art, and they
had among them skilful jewellers. Several specimens have been found, and
are to be seen in museums; but the noblest of all these is that which is
known as the Alfred Jewel.

The Alfred Jewel was discovered in Newton Park, near Athelney, in the
year 1693, and it found its way to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford by the
year 1718, where it still rests. It consists of an enamelled figure
enshrined in a golden frame, with a golden back to it, and with a thick
piece of rock crystal in front to serve as a glass to the picture.
Imagine a longitudinal section of a pigeon's egg, and let the golden
plate at the back of our jewel represent the plane of the egg's
diameter. From this plane, if we measure three-quarters of an inch in
the girth of the egg, and then take another section parallel to the gold
plate at the back, we obtain the front surface of the crystal through